Race, racist judges, defamation, quantum taxes and death….

The main issue: it is true that certain genes (and the characteristics that are a result of these genes) do come in clumps; certain Africans are susceptible to sickle cell anemia whereas Swedes aren’t; many Asians “blush” when drinking. On that, there is no disagreement. The discussion appears to be on the word itself: “race”.

My take: my knee jerk inclination is to side with Dr. Coyne here; after all, it is easy to look around and see that you are in Tokyo rather than in Abuja. But the term “race”, as used by the public, often denotes skin color and “features” and that is where things get interesting. For example: when I walk around in, say, San Antonio, TX, people automatically speak Spanish to me. I “look Mexican”. In fact, that is my cultural heritage. But was I in for a big surprise when I got my maternal and paternal genetic history. I was haplogroup K on the maternal side; R-1b on the paternal side. That is European ancestry…and note that my paternal grandfather was from Spain. In other words, genetically, I am “white” though those who look at me won’t see me that way.

Racist Judges
Yes, the Montana judge apologized for forwarding a nasty, racist e-mail message about President Obama and initiated a “judicial misconduct” investigation against himself. But…here is the real issue for me:

Earlier this week a Great Falls Tribune reporter found something startling in his inbox: a shockingly racist and misogynistic email forwarded from the most powerful federal judge in Montana, which “joked” that the president of the United States was the product of his mother having sex with a dog. The story soon became national news, with groups like ours calling on Judge Richard Cebull to resign.

Cebull quickly apologized to the president and submitted himself to a formal ethics review, somewhat quelling the story. But the story is about more than one judge doing something wildly inappropriate and deeply disturbing. It’s about a conservative movement in which the bile and animosity directed at the president — and even his family — are so poisonous that even someone who should know better easily confuses political criticism and sick personal attack. Come on: going after the president’s late mother?

The only reason I can explain it to you is I am not a fan of our president, but this goes beyond not being a fan. I didn’t send it as racist, although that’s what it is. Is sent it out because it’s anti-Obama.

Judge Cebull is hardly alone in using the old “I’m not racist, but…” line. In fact, his email was the result of an entire movement built on “I’m not racist, but…” logic that equates disagreement with and dislike of the president with broad-based, racially charged smears. These smears, tacitly embraced by the GOP establishment, are more than personal shots at the president — they’re attacks on the millions of Americans who make up our growing and changing country.

Mainstream conservatives have genuine objections to President Obama’s priorities and policies. But since he started running for president, a parallel movement has sprung up trying to paint Obama as an outsider and an imposter — in unmistakably racially charged terms. Too often, the two movements have intersected.

I won’t get into policy here; people will disagree on that. You sometimes find two Nobel Laureate economists on different sides of the same issue. I get that.

But there appears to be a more deep seated animosity going on here. My take:

President Obama is a modern man. He is comfortable coming from Columbia and from Harvard Law; he wrote a book that has curse words and the “n-word” in it (Dreams From my Father); in fact HE WROTE his own books (no ghostwriter). He watches and played basketball and continues to have lots of black friends. He visits other countries and openly tells them that their point of view matters; he admits that we’ve done wrong (at times) AND reminds others that we’ve done a lot of right too. He seems to understand that the rest of the world isn’t (and shouldn’t) be in a “US first” mode and he understands that in many areas, other countries have caught up or surpassed us (in some areas).

He even had the audacity to admit that not every American is Jewish or Christian and that there are non-believers too.

That just enrages many conservatives; they see their old “every REAL American” mentality fading away. And it is!!!! 🙂

In short, dinosaurs such as this judge can foresee their own coming extinction…ok, not really, but they are seeing that THEY are NOT the only REAL Americans. They are PART of America, not the defining part of America.

Personally, I don’t want the church (or religion in general) to change to accommodate everyone’s particular beliefs because that would imply that religion still has worth and relevance in today’s world. In my opinion, it doesn’t. I’d rather that people throw of the shackles of religion and superstition and embrace truly secular society.

…

… I’m sorry, Barbara, I sympathize with your situation, but I do not support your effort here. If you’re unhappy with your current club, I would suggest joining ours. We’ve got a wonderful membership that’s growing every day. We don’t ask you to tithe. We don’t ask you to get up early on Sunday. And we don’t ask you to change. We’re fine with you just the way you are.

This funeral ought to serve as just another reason you should abandon Catholicism. This priest wasn’t the problem. He was taught to act this way by his superiors. Blame them. Your family deserved more respect than the Church could offer and your mother deserved a better sendoff than the one she received. When the grief begins to subside, I hope you can muster the courage to leave that faith.

EXACTLY.

Yes, the Catholics who would have given her communion are more compassionate people (and many would have), but they are going against their church. Why stay in the Crazy Club?

Even better: there were two threads (one that debunked the notion that Dawkins was retreating from atheism because…he repeated, almost word for word…what he said in his book).

A few people jumped in and so did Mike Foster….and James Pearce…and these two have blocked each other but both were attempting to talk to both me and Amy.

There has to be a way of doing a mathematical model of X talking to A and B and Y also talking to A and B, X can see A and B’s messages but not Y’s, and Y can see A and B but not X. I can’t help but wonder if spirit, or rather, spirits were involved. Sadly, my two posts:
1. Why stay in a church when you don’t like the rules and
2. Dawkins was being entirely consistent
degenerated into people who should know better acting like cranks.

I am beginning to think that you had a point about facebook…except that I like hearing about my sports friends.

Yeah, the problem in this case isn’t so much facebook as it is people holding a priori beliefs about the world that are impervious to facts that contradict it.

I followed that bit about Dawkins, and I remember him saying the same thing on his seven-point scale of belief. Didn’t you have that posted on your sidebar at one point? The people who think his statements reflect a change of heart obviously have no clue what they’re talking about and have never read TGD or watched him speak about it. What a sham. Whenever I take a moment for introspection to challenge what I believe about the world, I always come back to dishonest shit like this as a point of reinforcement.

Which one had Foster and Pearce? I’ll be surprised if it wasn’t the Dawkins thread.

Comment by Jason |
March 5, 2012

Both threads had both, though more Pearce on the Dawkins thread. Pearce agreed with us (somewhat) on the communion thread.

About Blueollie

To keep track of my sports activities. I rarely train for anything anymore; mostly I just do workouts of the following types: running, walking, weight lifting and swimming. My best ultra accomplishment was walking 101 miles in 24 hours in 2004. These days, I walk a marathon every once in a while (5:50 to 7 hours) There was a time when I could run a sub 40 minute 10K (did that once), but that was another lifetime ago; these a days 2427-2825 25:50-27:45 minutes for a 5K would be more like it. I also have an off and on interest in yoga and in weight training. My lifetime PB in the bench is 310; currently I do sets of 4-5 with 190.

To discuss the football, basketball or baseball game I’ve been to. Since 2011, I started to attend live football games regularly (University of Illinois, sometimes Illinois State, sometimes either the Colts or Bears of the NFL…don’t get me started on the Rams) ; I’ve attended Bradley Basketball games (men and women) for some time. In the past 3 years, I started to watch live baseball again (mostly the Peoria Chiefs and Bradley University).

From time to time, I post what I am thinking about mathematically

I often post links to science articles, especially articles about cosmology and evolution.

I am very sympathetic to the “new atheist” movement, though some might consider me to be an agnostic. I reject any notion of a deity that interferes with physical events, but remain agnostic to the idea that there might be something “grand and wonderful” (Dawkins’ phrase) outside of our current spacetime continuum.

I am a liberal Democrat who thinks that the current social atmosphere is tilted way too far toward the interests of big business, and I reject the idea that a “free market” cures all ills, though pure socialism doesn’t work either. I am also a believer in the freedom of speech, including speech that I might not like. Also, I’ve been involved (to a moderate degree) with political campaigns, ranging from City Council races up to Presidential races.

I like to post photos of trips and vacations.

I like women in spandex. 🙂

The 2016 election: I voted for Hillary Clinton and was dismayed that she lost the Electoral College, though I take a bit of comfort that a plurality of voters preferred her (by just over 2 percentage points!)

I see Donald Trump as an unqualified amateur who lacks the humility and deportment to be an effective president; I sure hope the time proves me wrong. I’ve been wrong before (e. g. my election prediction) and will be wrong again. I hope this is one of those times.